Sneak
by Angelfirenze
Summary: He hasn’t given up, but he’s tempted to. Tempted to let his hands and his lips do his talking for him again in ways that his vocal cords cannot. It always does work out better that way. Third in the 'Steam' series.


**Sneak**

_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer: **Shore, et al., own everything. All together now: BOO! We would treat them so much better. Let Cuddy and House have brilliant, beautiful babies. Alas...

**Summary: **He hasn't given up, but he's tempted to. Tempted to let his hands and his lips do his talking for him again in ways that his vocal cords cannot. It always does work out better that way.

**Rating: M**, because I promised you guys smut. Smut you shall receive.

**Timelines: **Post-'Cane and Able' and _Steam_.

He watches as she rushes in, letting the doors close behind her as she immediately closes his blinds. Watches with intrigue as she hurries over to his desk and sits in one of his chairs; he has the presence of mind to stop bouncing his ball. Apparently, this is important because he's never seen her as pale as she is now. Her cheeks are flushed from the force of the emotions running through her and he takes a moment to gently touch the back of one of the hands splayed on his desk. Tethering her, bringing her back down to him where she belongs. People always assumed that he was the one in orbit far away; that she and Wilson were the grounding forces in his life. To a certain extent that was true. But not always. Certainly not now.

He waits patiently for her to settle. Waits for the words he knows are coming.

"If you'd kindly _not_ talk to my belly in the middle of the parking garage where any and everyone can see, that'd be great," she says, her left hand going unconsciously to her stomach and pressing faintly.

"You're asking me to ignore--" he starts to say, but she cuts him off, like he knew she would.

"Of course not," she snaps and he notices the sharpness in her voice--like chalk breaking--and the way she grips the armrests on either side of her.

"What's wrong?" he asks, not so secretly wishing she were on the other side of his desk so that he could reach out and touch that belly of hers. He's really rather fond of it--always has been and now more than ever.

"Cameron came in my office just now and asked was there something going on with us."

"Yes," he says succinctly and she doesn't miss the way his brow knits and his eyes narrow, as they have often as of late whenever someone or something reminds him of his 'so-called-friend, the asshole next door.' She almost wishes he would blame her because then he'd still be speaking to said 'asshole' and her guilt over the whole matter wouldn't be eating her alive.

"She asked that two and a half months ago and two _years_ ago," he reminds her and she nods, frowning and resisting the urge to reach across his desk, herself. "And she asked it again last week. Whoop-de-doo."

"Well--aside from what she was really talking about--there's actually something _to it_ this time," she says softly, biting her lip in that way he loves so much. "I mean, more than usual. _This_ we won't be able to hide for very long."

"Meh," he says and she stares at him incredulously. "Let them stare." And then he gets that gleam in his eye that she knows so well. The one that makes her want to hit him and throw him back onto his desk all at one time. It's incredibly frustrating to be with him, to talk to him, at the most normal of times. It's damned near impossible right now.

"You're mine," he says, that little growl in the back of his throat that always makes her squirm in the most delightful manner. "I'd think the feeling was mutual, but apparently, you don't mind sharing me..."

"It depends on who I'm sharing you _with_," she tells him, looking down at her belly and wishing he could play 'Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star' on her navel. He swears she's made of music and he could play her all night long if given the chance.

He has. Time and time again.

"Don't worry about Cameron," he tells her, dropping his ball onto its dish. "I'll get Chase to distract her."

"You mean you'll get Chase to sleep with her," she deadpans and he gives her an incredulous look of his own. "Oh, stop."

"Anyway," he says because there are more important things at hand. The most insistent of which has been twitching under his desk since he first saw her heading his way. "So how's our little tax deduction coming along?"

"Shut up, Greg," she says, but she's smiling. He was calling it other things last night, his hands and lips dancing a minuet along her diaphragm and her soul.

And he does shut up, because he has better things to do than say a lot of nothing about something that can't even be described. He's tried and can't. He hasn't given up, but he's tempted to. Tempted to let his hands and his lips do his talking for him again in ways that his vocal cords cannot. It always does work out better that way.

And a minuet just isn't long enough, in his opinion. He glances at the blinds to make sure they're all closed, and they are because he knows she's anal like that. He agrees with her this time, though, because damn it, this doesn't belong to anyone else but them.

Standing carefully, he comes around to the other side of the desk and presents her with his hand.

She looks at him questioningly before a small glance downward fills her with amused annoyance. But then she smiles and lets him pull her out of the chair and sit her on his desk, her skirt riding up and blending ever so nicely with the bulge in his pants as he leans into her and begins kissing tiny sparks up and down her neck. Her resulting moan says she's not _that_ annoyed, thank you very much, and her arch into him cements him of that opinion. He presses forward, the rough denim of his jeans sending shocks through her and making her gasp into his ear in that way that--hell, what _doesn't_ he love that she does?

Reaching down between them, his fingers stroke and glide against the fabric of her panties, easing them out of the way and pressing at the heat inside. He's rewarded with a moan that urges a rumble up from within his chest. He doesn't speak right now and, anyway, he can't.

* * *

He knows that it's probably a very bad idea that he idles in the conference room the way he is. And it certainly isn't smart to just...stand there while House and Cuddy are...talking or whatever it was they're doing. They never actually do much talking. It's more like an exchange in mockery. Only this time there's not any vicious barbs flying back and forth. Just a heavy quiet that he can feel all the way in here. Part of him wants to go look and see what's happening, but the larger part that's not stupid says to stay put. House calls him an idiot sometimes, but he is not one and he suspects House knows it, too. He tries to concentrate on the thick tome in front of him, but everything is so still in here, he can hear the rustle of shirts and moaning deep in someone's (he suspects House) chest. He tries not to imagine the two of them--they _are_ his immediate superiors, after all--and if they didn't care about privacy, all those blinds wouldn't be shut. He knows House isn't the exhibitionistic type anyway--couldn't be, with the way he hides that leg. And Cuddy's too...oh, God, did she just _moan_?

Everything in Chase has just slid sloppily into a puddle down in his shoes and he's trying desperately to concentrate on the atrophic lungs pictured in front of him and not the fictitious image his mutinous brain has conjured of what the lace of Cuddy's bra might look like. Certainly not trying to think about whatever House is doing to her that's making her moan like that.

It's wrong that he's still in here while they're _in there. _It's _definitely_ wrong that he's listening to what they're doing. It's even more wrong that his hand has decided to completely disregard whatever common sense it might've had and is slowly making its way toward the adamant swell now taking shape under the thin cotton of his own dark dress pants. It's all just wrong and God help him, he's enjoying every moment of it. He feels his eyes close as that rebellious hand begins laving and molding itself over his erection, sending shivers of pleasure surging through him. The moaning and--now--quiet grunting in the adjacent room is doing nothing to quell the lust now surging through him. And the worst part of all is that he doesn't really care just now, anymore.

* * *

He never thought that being a Department Head could come in handy quite like this. He watches greedily as the new heavy roundness in Cuddy's breasts makes them sway hypnotically as he inches inside the singeing heat so fully enveloping him. He'd reach up and touch them--he's made enough asides about them for it to be plain that they're one of his favorite parts of her--but he's rather nervous, just now, about losing the precarious balance that both of them have on the edge of his desk. They've managed to find a balance and a rhythm that doesn't weigh heavily on his (not very newly, oh so regretfully) always-aching leg, and he'd like to keep it that way. He's going to pay for it as it is, but he doesn't want the damned thing to collapse and send her crashing to the floor with him soon after. That'd spell disaster for not just the two of them, but this...he doesn't have a word for it yet, and looks for one with every passing second...that they've created. Amalgamation? No, that--

His thoughts are cut short as he feels her shift on him and her resulting moan rolls over and through him like the torrent of a wave. Her fingers dig into his hips through his shirt and it's all he can do not to moan himself. He leans forward, testing their already precarious balance to whisper in her ear, his hand coming up to tangle in her hair, his teeth sliding along her collarbone. He wants to bite down, to take her and claim her in more ways than one, but unfortunately they are at work and she wouldn't be able to hide it. He wants her to hide it. Wants her to wear turtlenecks and scarves and be able to revel in the fact that he's the reason she's hidden beneath cloth and silk.

He's always been possessive like that.

Her eyes were closed, but now they're open--just barely, but enough to count. The dark blue swallows his lighter ones until they're mere shadows on the want he sees in her. The knowledge that it's for him and no one else fills him with a sort of irrational pride. He lets her fall forward, murmuring nonsense into the crook of his neck, leaning back and staring at the ceiling as colors and shapes that beat out the best narcotic bloom and explode in front of his eyes, feels his pace becoming erratic and unplanned. He likes to take his time, but the urgency that fills him now won't let him indulge as he usually does. He knows that the stamina of pregnant women is drastically affected by the hormones surging through him, but he never thought it could affect him, as well.

_Sympathetic orgasm_. He almost wants to laugh. Instead he concentrates on the way her eyes slide shut of their own volition. The way her hands are gripping his arms so hard they're sure to leave bruises, but that's fine because he can wear long-sleeve shirts and be her evil little secret, too. She's moving over and around him and he's thisclose to dying right then and there, he thinks compulsively. He has to be experiencing some sort of tachycardia, his heart and lungs and mind are going so fast and everything is blending together, but he doesn't mind this time. He knows if he went into cardiac arrest, she could save him. She did last time. She always will, he knows.

A tiny, insignificant part of him that always pops up at the most inconvenient of times says that this medical, analytical line of thinking is not what men who are experiencing mind-blowing orgasms usually think about. The larger part of his mind, the part dying of pleasure just now tells that little part to shut the fuck up. _You can worry about your weirdness later, Limping Twerp, for now just enjoy the fucking...gaaaaaahhhh..._

And then he wants to scream.

He settles for burying his face in her breasts and moaning, deep, long, and heavy as he falls over the precipice and lands on...is that a cloud?

His eyes open and he realizes that somewhere along the way, he blacked out. Cuddy is staring at him in that affectionately annoyed way she was earlier. The one only she could pull off.

"It's a little rude to fall asleep," she whispers, but there's a twinkle of mischief in her eyes and he knows she's proud as fuck for having worn him out, for riding him just that hard.

Evil little minx.

He just smiles, blinking blearily and licking dry lips. She's still around him, pulling him in even as the last of his _genetic material_ paints her inside and 'reinforces' what's already there. It's a ludicrous thought, but he doesn't worry about it.

"Oh, shut up, like you didn't enjoy yourself," he mutters, feigning irritation, but giving her a little thrust for good measure, fully enjoying the little mewl he gets in response. He sighs and she lets her face fall forward to rest in his hair and she complains half-heartedly that it's never combed, but he knows she secretly doesn't care. His hands come up and slide around the faint roundness in her belly and he feels a smile start but suppresses it. He does worry sometimes, about what they're doing, about what he's assigning himself to, what sort of whack job he is and how much it would royally suck if he let his kid turn out to be even half as screwed up as he is.

He wants the mystery under his palms to be happy. He doesn't want this innocent and blameless _tabula rasa _taking shape so very close to his fingers to be filled with disappointment and rage at the unending inanity and pointless violence of its kind. He doesn't want the early wonder to end.

It takes him a second to realize that Cuddy is staring at him. He takes a deep, deep breath and he wants to lie to her, but he can't. He never could lie about the important things. Clinic hours, issues with Cameron, and his supposed hatred for her? In a split second. She sees through his bullshit and that's fine.

But this isn't bullshit.

"I don't want them to be disappointed," he whispers and she bites her lip and it makes him want to lean forward and feel her arms around him and he does and she does and it's a little better that way. He thinks back to when he was small. He realizes that it's not ordinary that he can remember being a baby, but he's never been able to do anything about it and has never seen a reason to care. He remembers being one and the first time he paid any real attention to the piano. He remembers pressing the keys and hearing their sounds (they were telling little pieces of a story, his mother told him, and he could put it together any way that he wanted) and loving it right from the start.

He remembers being three and watching the precession of President Kennedy's funeral on the television. He remembers asking his mother why he was dead. She couldn't answer his question. He remembers when he was five, almost, and his parents were really happy about something and saying it would be good for him and that he would know in a little while, but not then. He remembers after that, when his mother thought he wasn't looking and she would cry while baking bread.

He remembers being seven and realizing that his classmates--when he had them--couldn't do the things he did. Couldn't speak all the languages he could. Hadn't seen all the things he had. Didn't even know that they could and didn't care that they hadn't. Called him a freak because he was so far ahead of them.

He remembers being ten; the plastic soldiers his father bought him, saying his interests weren't what boys should like.

He remembers being seventeen and outraged because he just couldn't understand what the hell was so great about being like everybody else. Years and years and he still couldn't understand.

He remembers being twenty-four and a lost weekend that cost him a scholarship as well as postponed his visions (he's never allowed himself to call them dreams and isn't about to start) and made him rethink the plans he's had laid down since he was old enough to think.

He remembers being thirty-nine and dying. His abrupt resuscitation and the sick poison that had meanwhile seeped into whatever faith he had in anything or anyone, forever tainting it. Making it fetid and rotten. Decayed.

He's never been able to be anyone else and doesn't see the point of trying, but he can't help but ask the question.

He's nearly fifty, now, and if someone's found the answer, they never bothered to tell him.

"I don't want them to feel..." He can never get it out when he really needs to. Can never get what he experiences out and it builds up in his chest like double pneumonia and makes him heavy and angry and he can never feel...

"Fuck," he snarls, burying his head back into her shoulder and closing his eyes so he doesn't have to think. He can feel her hand in his hair and he feels his breathing rate pick back up, but shoves it all down because if he continues like this he'll collapse inside and probably outside, too.

"I know," she whispers, and he just nods, staying still and silent because he knows she does. She doesn't fuck around. Not with him. He loves that about her.

She gets slowly to her feet, regretting the loss of him and can see in his eyes he misses her, too. They each zip, button, straighten their clothes--the usual motions of covering one's sexual tracks. But the small smiles that grace both their mouths--his markedly less certain than hers--lets them know that this isn't just disappearing. A lingering brush of his fingers across her midsection and she leaves, a content feeling of release flowing through her.

He sits back, stares at his ceiling, and wishes he could know how that feels.

* * *

Chase slides as surreptitiously out of the conference room as he can, ducking into the bathroom down the hall and turning the faucet on hot, full blast. He has to be careful not to scald himself. He shoves the handle of the soap dispenser back several times, lathering and repeatedly going over every inch of the skin of his hands. Under his fingernails and even his wrists, as though he were scrubbing up for surgery.

He feels he might die.


End file.
